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Mar 12:34 You are not far from the kingdom of God.

Hidden meaning: If we take this statement as a message from Christ to us today, it have a very different meaning than praise for a specific person in history, Christ consistently describes the divine kingdom or divine rule as an on-going process. What Christ says here is that we are all close to it, a part of it, even if we don't know what is going on.

Christ only tells one other person, Peter, who and what they are using the second person of the verb "to be." The central question of the Gospels, using this form of the verb, is who Christ is, not who we are. It often seems as though Christ is constrained from telling us to much about the nature of reality, but here he gives a little bit away. We are not part of the rule of God, but we are not far from it.

Thematically and Linguistically Related Verse(s): This verse is unique to Mark.

Vocabulary:

"You are" is from eimi (eimi), which means "to be", "to exist", "to be the case," and "is possible." (The future form is esomai. The 3rd person present indicative is "esti.") Here the form is second person present indicative, ei.)

[uncommon](adv) "Far" is from makran (makran), which means "far," and "long."